1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for wireless data transmission, and in particular to a system and method for increasing the network capacity by augmenting an existing wireless transmission network with a satellite transmission system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been an increased demand for high bandwidth transmission of digital data such as video and audio media to remote, and particularly, mobile users. One way to provide such a service is to design and deploy a new mobile communication system that supports high-bandwidth data transmission. Unfortunately, with current technology, such a system is prohibitively expensive. Existing mobile communication infrastructures may also be used, but such systems are designed primarily for low bandwidth voice communication and are poorly suited for high bandwidth data transmission. The current method of augmenting traffic capacity with such systems is to lease additional wireline capacity when traffic loading exceeds current throughput capacity. While this solution is effective for personalized data and voice traffic, it is not a good solution for multimedia content. What is needed is a system that provides high bandwidth data transmission at a reasonable cost by using, to the extent possible, existing communication infrastructures. The present invention satisfies that need.